Forklift trucks are known that can be carried around by a transport truck after they have pulled themselves up underneath the truck and have been secured to the bottom of the exterior of the truck for travel. These prior art forklift trucks are able to raise themselves up under the bed of a transport truck when the tines of the fork have been raised into an elevated position and are then secured in one way or another beneath the truck bed, after which the hydraulic drive of the forklift truck is reversed so that the fork presses downward instead of upward. The result is that the main body of the forklift truck rises, because of the downwardly directed force of the fork, until the forklift truck reaches the level where it is to be stored.
Forklift trucks of the type just described are disclosed in the patents to Joosten No. U.S. Pat. 3,710,965 and Grether et al. No. 3,799,379. As will be seen from FIG. 6 of the Joosten patent and FIGS. 8 and 12 of the Grether et al. patent, when these forklift trucks are in their storage position they extend backward from the rear end of the transport truck. As a result, they add an awkward length to the transport truck under which they are stored. In addition, they are exposed to the elements during bad weather, as well as to possible damage from collisions with another vehicle or a fixed structure such as a garage wall.
The earlier patent to Bultman U.S. Pat. No. 3,563,341 discloses a forklift truck that can raise itself up into a position to be loaded on the platform bed of a transport truck, but it accomplishes this only by means of an awkward and unwieldly stabilizer arrangement that is utilized to keep the apparatus in a stable position while it lifts itself up onto the platform of the transport truck. In addition, before and during this self-lifting process, the base of the Bultman forklift truck must be shifted so far to the rear that it presents an undesirable, awkward obstacle to any movement of the operator through the area behind the transport truck onto which the forklift truck is being loaded.